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(11) | EP 3 495 581 A1 |
| (12) | EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION |
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| (54) | MOUNTING FRAME FOR A FLOOR DRAIN AND PROCEDURE FOR MOUNTING OF THE FLOOR DRAIN BY MEANS OF THE MOUNTING FRAME |
| (57) Mounting frame (1) designed to be arranged between floor joists in a floor structure,
where the mounting frame (1) is set up to support a floor drain with an associated
cassette, wherein the cassette is a rectangular disc with a mounting opening for the
floor drain in a central part of the cassette, where the mounting frame (1) comprises
two rails (2a, 2b) arranged in parallel adapted to be attached with their respective
ends (4a, 4b) to the sides of two adjacent joists facing each other in said floor
structure, and where the mounting frame (1) has two cross braces (3a, 3b) arranged
between and transversally to said rails (2a, 2b) and each one of them being displaceable
along the rails, wherein the distance between the parallel rails (2a, 2b) and the
distance between the cross braces (3a, 3b) during mounting of these are arranged to
be configured so that the outer edges of the cassette will be supported by said rails
and said cross braces.
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TECHNICAL FIELD
[0001] The present invention refers to a mounting frame in which a floor drain with an associated cassette is mounted between floor joists in a floor structure to support the cassette around its edges.
PRIOR ART
[0002] In recent times, in the case of new production of houses and restoration of older buildings floor drains which are mounted in floors are usually made of plastic. These floor drains are usually circular and fitted with a round collar at the top. To facilitate mounting in floor structures where a floor is carried by longitudinal floor joists established at predetermined locations adjacent to each other support cassettes made of plastic are commonly used. These cassettes are designed to be rectangular, usually like quadratic discs, having a circular opening in its inner part to receive the floor drain. The floor drain is lowered into the opening of the cassette, so that the collar of the floor drain rests in a circular recess corresponding to the circular opening in the cassette.
[0003] The procedure during the mounting of a floor drain of said kind is based on that the cassette is arranged between the sides of two floor joists facing each other, where said floor joists usually are made of wood. When a position for the location of the floor drain has been determined this can imply that one side of the cassette can be set on one floor joist. The situation is mostly that the cassette needs to be located somewhere between two floor joists without any part of the cassette being able to rest on a floor joist. The procedure for an operator initiating the mounting of the floor drain cassette is usually hereby that the operator designs two support bars made of wood to be located between the two floor joists, across these, and at such a distance from each other that two opposing edges of the cassette can be supported by these support bars. Further, the operator makes two wood noggins adapted to be placed between the two support bars, across these and at such a mutual distance that the two remaining edges of the cassette can be set and rest on these noggins.
[0004] The described procedure for mounting a floor drain with the associated cassette in the designated way is time consuming. The operator needs to bring wood studs which must be measured, cut and attached at the chosen location. Support bars and noggins have to be nailed and/or screwed to place which can be tedious as it is narrow between floor joists and the adapted bars. Further, it appears that lagging is present in spaces where the floor drain shall be located. Usually, the lagging will become pressed down in the area filled by the applied support bars and noggins, which most often are made of 45x95 mm bars. It is thus difficult to restore isolation around the floor drain when it is mounted to its location, which causes cold leaks and/or sound leaks to arise around the floor drain in the floor structure after the mounting.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0005] According to one aspect the invention comprises a mounting frame intended to be arranged between joists in a floor structure, where the mounting frame is established to support a floor drain together with its associated cassette, where the cassette is a rectangular disc with a mounting opening for the floor drain in a central part of the disc. The mounting frame comprises two rails disposed in a parallel manner and being adapted to be attached with their respective ends to the sides of two adjacent joists facing each other in said floor structure. Further, the mounting frame has two cross braces arranged between and across said rails and displaceable individually along the rails.
[0006] The distance between the parallel rails are arranged to be less than the length between two opposing edges of the cassette, so that said edges of the cassette overlap the distance between the rails, whereby the cassette at least partly rests on said rails at said edges when the cassette is placed on the rails. Correspondingly, the distance between the two cross braces are arranged by moving them with their ends along the rails so that the cross braces will be arranged at a distance from each other being less than the length between the two other opposing edges of the cassette, so that the cassette thereby can rest on said cross braces at said other edges of the cassette when the cassette is placed on the cross braces. Preferably, the distance between the rails as well as between the cross braces are arranged so that the edges of the cassette will cover approximately half the width of rails and cross braces.
[0007] The rails are at its ends provided with attachments intended for securing each end of a rail at the side of a floor joist. These attachments may be rigidly associated with the ends of the rails and be made of punched mounting plates being arranged across the ends of the rails, whereby the rails can be attached by means of screwing against the sides of the floor joists at a desired location. Preferably, the attachment plates are removable from the ends of the rails by means of a configuration where the rails have profiled tracks and the attachments plates provided with complementary taps which can be brought into the profiled tracks of the rails. By this, the attachment plates can be detached from the rails. The reason why this is an advantage is that the distance between the floor joists may vary, which means that it may be necessary to cut the rails upon fitting of the rails transversally to said adjacent floor joists. Rails can be shortened to the desired length, whereupon the taps of the attachments plates are put into place at the ends of the rails, which facilitates and shortens the time for mounting. Further, at one more variant, the profiling of the rails is such that the rails can be laid down in fasteners which have one or more U-profiles turned upwards for receiving rails with complementary profiling at its ends. At such a configuration the fasteners can be mounted in place initially, whereupon the rails adapted in their lengths are easily pressed down into the fasteners. This shortens the mounting time further.
[0008] The cassette in which the floor drain is kept located is made with a thickness corresponding to the floor covering which is being stationed on top of the floor joists. Usually this floor covering is flooring chipboards or some kind of parquet floor of a standardized thickness, e.g. 22 mm. Because of this, the upper plane of rails as well as cross braces of the mounting frame are mounted flush with the upper plane of the floor joists.
[0009] The ends of the cross braces are designed to run along the inner edges of the rails of the mounting frame. This can be accomplished in different ways. In one embodiment the inner edges of the rails have a longitudinal upward directed flange, herein named tongue, whereby a groove is formed between the inner edges and the longitudinal tongue. On this tongue the end of a cross brace can then be set slidable as it is made with an overhang which is located across said tongue of the rail and thereby being supported by the tongue.
[0010] The thickness of rails and cross braces, respectively, i.e. the same as the depth with which these are penetrating down into the floor structure, is small, i.e. in the interval from 20 to 40 mm, preferably between 20 and 30 mm. Because of this low depth of the rails and the cross braces of the mounting frame they do not penetrate down into the isolation adjacent to the floor drain to a significant extent. When the mounting frame is mounted to its location the cassette with the floor drain being inserted therein can be placed into the mounting frame. The floor drain is turned inside the cassette so that its outlet pipe is aimed towards the direction where the connecting drain pipes shall be mounted. Because the mounting frame has a small depth the lower planes of rails and cross braces do not penetrate as far as the upper part of the floor drain outlet pipe. This fact permits the floor drain being freely rotatable below the mounting frame for finding the direction towards the connecting drain pipe. This is a substantial advantage with a mounting frame according to the invention, which gives rise to a significant time saving when assembling compared to the time spent when using wood studs according to prior art technique, where operators have to make a hole or a recess at the wood stud where the outlet pip shall run out.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0011]
Figure 1 schematically shows a perspective view of a mounting frame according to one aspect of the invention.
Figure 2 shows the mounting frame according to figure 1 in a plane view from above.
Figure 3 illustrates the use of the mounting frame of figure 1 mounted between two floor joists and supporting a cassette for a floor drain.
Figure 4 shows the connection of fasteners to the ends of the rails in an embodiment where fasteners are not rigidly attached to the rails.
Figure 5 illustrates the configuration of the ends of the cross braces to make the cross braces slidable along the rails.
DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS
[0012] In the following, a number of embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. The drawings show the principle of the device only schematically and do not claim to show any proportions between different elements thereof according to scale. According to one aspect of the invention the mounting frame 1 is shown in a perspective view in its entirety in figure 1. The two lengthwise parallel rails, referred to as 2a and 2b, are intended to be attached between two floor joists and transversally to these. Between the two rails 2a, 2b two cross braces 3a, 3b are arranged perpendicularly to the rails 2a, 2b. Said cross braces 3a, 3b are configured to be slidably arranged between the rails 2a, 2b so they can be displaced along these in the axial direction of the rails 2a, 2b. This is highlighted with arrows in figure 2, which is a plane view of the mounting frame 1 from above.
[0013] As is depicted in the figures, each end 4a, 4b of the rails 2a, 2b are provided with fasteners 4, which in one preferred alternative comprise attachment plates 5. The length of the rails including fasteners 4 shall essentially be the same as the distance between two floor joists at the location where the mounting frame will be positioned. Thus the attachment plates 5 are designed to be attached towards the sides of the floor joists preferably by means of screws through the holes in the attachments plates 5 in such a way to ensure that the top sides of the rails 2a, 2b and the cross braces 3a, 3b will be flush levelled with the upper planes of the floor joists. This is shown in figure 3, which is only meant to picture how a mounting frame 1 is placed between floor joists, which arc here denoted by number 6. Preferably, so called mounting screws should be used to reduce the risk of wood cracking when attaching the attachment plates.
[0014] The length of the rails 2a, 2b, including their fasteners, of the mounting frame 1 can be designed to have a fixed length of 55,5 cm, which correspond to the standard distance between floor joists, at least in Sweden. A mounting frame 1 of that kind can thereby be screwed in between floor joists without any necessity of length fitting. However, at restoration of apartments in older stock of buildings it is rather common that the distance between floor joists may be different, or that these have not become fitted with accuracy at construction work, whereby it may be needed to shorten the rails 2a, 2b of the mounting frame 1 to attain space for the rails between floor joists 6. Because of this the rails 2a, 2b arc configured in an alternative embodiment, where they may be cut to the desired length. To achieve this in a simple way the attachment plates 5 in this embodiment are arranged to be detachable from the rails, which is shown as an example in figure 4. At this, in the fasteners 4, perpendicularly arranged to the attachment plates 5, taps 7 are fully integrated with the attachment plates 5 and these taps 7 being directed inwards to an end 4a, 4b of a rail 2a, 2b. The end 4a, 4b of the rail 2a, 2b is in this case made with a hole having an inner shape corresponding to the outer circumference and the geometry of the taps 7, whereby a fastener 4 is brought with its taps 7 into the hole at the end 4a, 4b of the rail 2a, 2b, so that the rail firmly encloses the tap 7 of the attachment plate 5. In this way the mounting frame can be adapted to varying spacing between floor joists by extracting the supplied fasteners 4 at one end, whereupon the rails are shortened to its desired length and where in turn the fasteners 4 are reintroduced into the shortened ends of the rails 2a, 2b. The profiles of the rails 2a, 2b at their ends as well as the profiles of the taps 7 of the fasteners 4 can of course be configured in other ways than in the way it is illustrated according to the example in figure 4.
[0015] One example of how the cross braces 3a, 3b are connected to the rails 2a, 2b appears from figure 5. Thus, an upwards directed tongue 8 along the long sides of the rails 2a, 2b is shaped in such a way that a longitudinal groove 9 runs along the outside of one rail 2a, 2b between the upwards directed tongue 8 and the side of the rail. A corresponding downwards directed tongue which extends along the ends of a cross brace forms an overhang 10 with a short chute 11 being formed across the cross brace 3a,3b between the overhang and the end of the cross brace. The profiling of the longitudinal groove 9 and the short chute 11 correspond to each other, whereby the downwards directed tongue of the overhang 10 at the end of a cross brace 3a, 3b can be introduced into the longitudinal groove 9 of a rail 2a, 2b, which is depicted in figure 5. Further, the fitting between these parts are made to be distinct and without a slip, whereby the cross brace 3a, 3b can be moved along the rail and kept perpendicular with respect to the rail during this displacement.
[0016] A procedure for applying the mounting frame 1 into a floor structure is arranged by adapting the length of the rails 2a, 2b to correspond to the distance between floor joists located adjacent to each other at the location where the mounting frame shall be placed. The adaptation may implicate that rails need to be cut to the correct length. To be sure about a correct mutual distance between the rails 2a, 2b the cross braces 3a, 3b should be mounted to the rails so that these are certainly arranged in parallel during the attachment of the rails. During the following step it should be monitored that the upper surface of the rails 2a, 2b is arranged to be flush with the upper planes of the floor joists, whereupon the rails are screwed to predetermined places at the floor joists and attached by means of screws which are applied to the holes of the fasteners 4. As the cross braces 3a, 3b can be displaced along the rails, said cross braces can be moved aside during the mounting and thereby facilitate the screwing of the fasteners. This is a significant advantage, since it very often can be narrow and difficult to reach screw locations with a screw driver or another tool, which is a difficulty in the use of prior art technology.
[0017] Already in advance the measure between the rails 2a, 2b is arranged by that the cross braces 3a, 3b keep the rails at a certain distance from each other. This distance is preferably chosen so that the edge of the cassette which is to be installed on the rails ends up substantially halfway into the width of the rail 2a, 2b. The cross braces 3a, 3b are adjusted to assume correct positions so that also half of their widths are essentially covered by the cassette, when it is placed on the mounting frame 1 in a location which is designated by the predetermined location of the floor drain. When the mounting frame is positioned and attached to the floor joists the floor drain cassette is screwed or glued to the mounting frame 1. The cassette is denoted by reference number 12 in figure 3. The cassette is not a part of the invention and just represents, in figure 3, an illustration of the use of the mounting frame 1.
1. Mounting frame (1) designed to be arranged between floor joists in a floor structure,
where the mounting frame (1) is set up to support a floor drain with an associated
cassette, wherein the cassette is a rectangular disc with a mounting opening for the
floor drain in a central part of the cassette,
caracterized by that the mounting frame (1):
caracterized by that the mounting frame (1):
- comprises two rails (2a, 2b) arranged in parallel adapted to be attached with their respective ends (4a, 4b) to the sides of two adjacent joists facing each other in said floor structure,
- has two cross braces (3a, 3b) arranged between and transversally to said rails (2a, 2b) and each one of them being displaceable along the rails, wherein the distance between the parallel rails (2a, 2b) and the distance between the cross braces (3a, 3b) during mounting of these are arranged to be configured so that the outer edges of the cassette will be supported by said rails and said cross braces.
2. Mounting frame (1) according to claim 1, where:
- the inner edges of the rails (2a, 2b) have a longitudinal upwards directed tongue (8),
- the cross braces (3a, 3b) have an overhang (10) along its ends,
- the overhangs (10) of the cross braces (3a, 3b) lie over the longitudinal upwards directed tongue (8) of the connecting rail (2a, 2b) and can be displaced along the rail.
3. Mounting frame (1) according to claim 2, where a longitudinal groove (9) is formed
between the longitudinal upwards directed tongue (8) and the inner edge of the rail
(2a, 2b) and where this groove has a geometrical profiled cross section, and further
that the overhang (10) of the cross brace (3a, 3b) has a corresponding geometrical
profiled cross section, wherein the overhang (10) of the cross brace (3a, 3b) can
be connected to and become inserted into the groove (9) of the rail (2a, 2b) only
from the end (4a, 4b) of the rail.
4. Mounting frame (1) according to claim 2, where the ends (4a, 4b) of the rails (2a,
2b) are provided with fasteners (4) for attachment of the rails (2a, 2b) to the ends
of said joists.
5. Mounting frame (1) according to claim 4, where the fasteners (4) are detachable from
and abled to be reintroduced into the ends of the rails (2a, 2b).
6. Mounting frame (1) according to anyone of the preceding claims, wherein the mounting
frame (1) preferably is made of any one of:
1) an armoured polymer,
2) an armoured polymer reinforced with a foamed polyurethane,
3) a light alloy.
7. The mounting frame (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the thickness
of the mounting frame (1) is in the interval from 20 mm to 40 mm, preferably 20 mm
to 30 mm.
8. A procedure for applying the mounting frame (1) according to claim 1 to floor joists
located adjacent to each other, characterized by the steps of:
- the rails (2a, 2b) are screwed with its ends to the adjacent floor joists, transversally to these, at a predetermined location between said floor joists and situated at a mutual distance settled by the length of the cross braces (3a, 3b) arranged between the rails,
- the cross braces (3a, 3b) are displaced along the rails (2a, 2b) so that these are positioned at a predetermined location between said floor joists and at a mutual distance which causes the cross braces (3a, 3b) to support the edges of a cassette arranged on the mounting frame (1).
9. The procedure according to claim 8, where the mounting frame (1) is applied to the
floor joists so that the top side of rails (2a, 2b) and cross braces (3a, 3b) end
up flush with the upper planes of these floor joists.
10. The procedure according to claim 8 or 9, where fasteners (4) are removed from the
ends of the rails during cutting of the rails (2a, 2b) whereupon the fasteners (4)
are reintroduced into the ends of the rails after the rails have been cut to the predetermined
length.